Of course this shot was probably a signal for them to heave to, but the ship was already stopped. What else could he do? Usually, when signaling with a gun, the projectile was omitted to prevent accidents. In this present confused state the most important task would seem to be to identify the ship. Turning to Mister Woodrich, one of the mids, he ordered him to send up the British colors. Another discharge from the same Spanish gun. This one landed in the sea ahead. People with questioning looks on their faces crowded the quarterdeck, probably wondering how he was planning on extricating them from the situation.
When the third shot blossomed, Phillips knew he was not about to watch his ship being shot to pieces. He ordered sail put on her, and the guns that had been struck below should be retrieved.
Frantic activity took place then. Captain Fitzhugh got the ship before the wind, while Phillips directed the rearming of the vessel. The carronades were yanked from below deck and dropped on their slides. There being no powder monkeys as such, some of the Marines took their place bringing cartridges and ball up from below.
Meantime, the pursuing frigate was continuing her bombardment. Balls were now coming aboard. The damage this far had been inconsequential but Phillips knew any moment, serious damage could be caused in the blink of an eye.
The ornate window frames in the great cabin were taken down and struck below. The pair of nine pounder long guns that would serve as the brig’s stern chasers were mounted in their place.
One by one, the big 32 pounder carronades were readied for action on the ship’s beam. The enemy was closing on Mastiff’s stern. Phillips decided it was now or never. To start the ball, he ordered the stern chasers fired. One ball was a close miss, but the other hit solidly, penetrating the heavy timber of the frigate’s bow, and, on her way aft, putting a notch in the frigate’s foremast just under her foredeck. The stern chasers continued their thunder, causing important damage to the big ship. With no perceptible damage being done to spars or rigging, the frigate continued to gain on Mastiff. Phillips ordered the stern chasers to be reloaded with grape in the hope of disabling members of the enemy’s gun crews, but the frigate’s bow guns continued to do their deadly work.
With the enemy closing to musket shot range, it was time to do something different. Giving Fitzhugh the order, the brig now came around, suffering a solid hit from a 12 pound ball fired at close range, striking just forward of the starboard mizzen chains, above the waterline. The carpenter immediately set to with his crew to repair the damage. With the ship coming around and the men at their stations, Fitzhugh gave the order for the starboard battery to fire. Only five guns were ready to fire from that side at that moment, but all got off their shot and every shot hit. The frigate was seriously hurt with those five balls. Iron balls of that size and weight were something that would get attention when they struck.
All struck the frigate around her bows, causing important damage in an area where repairs would be difficult. No sooner had the bores been swabbed out, when the new charges were inserted and the guns made ready to fire again. This time, there would be six rounds fired. Another gun had been readied after the last broadside. The final carronade was already in the air ready to be dropped on its slide.
The six guns fired their heavy balls into their enemy, while the frigate tried to turn to direct fire from her broadside guns against the brig. The Spaniard was having heavy going, its opponent was able to ready those light carronades in half the time it took the frigate to reload its own guns after firing. Also, many of the frigate’s broadside guns were 12 pounders. The 32 pound balls from Mastiff were doing dreadful damage to the frigate. The frigate was still bows on to Mastiff’s broadside and was receiving damage to her bow area she could not long endure.
Now all of the brig’s guns were mounted and firing. A pair of balls striking the frigate’s already weakened fore mast brought it down. With all her fore sails set in an effort to close her persecutor, that canvas fell over many of the forward guns and blanketed their fire.
The drag of the frigate’s fallen mast had slewed the ship around so some of her starboard broadside guns could bear on her tormentor. Several well directed shots struck the brig. Mastiff was now receiving more than her share of enemy fire and men were going down rapidly. Now another advantage of the carronades became apparent. These light guns did not require a large crew to operate them. Even with the gun crews being thinned out by enemy fire, the brig was still able to maintain a steady volume of fire against her enemy.
Now, with the disabled frigate unable to maneuver, Fitzhugh put Mastiff on her quarter. Here she was able to savage the enemy while receiving little fire herself. Switching from ball to grapeshot, Phillips decided to attempt to thin out this enemy crew. The grape was devastatingly effective. With each charge consisting of 32 pounds of little iron balls, there was just no place for enemy crewmen to evade the slaughter.
In short order, the enemy quarterdeck was empty, as several carronade blasts killed or wounded everyone there.
Now the brig was doing most of the firing. Many of the frigates’ guns were now silent. With no direction from the quarterdeck, there was little concerted effort on the frigate. Every living individual was following the beat of his own drum.
Finally, one of those individuals, a simple seaman, slashed the halyard extending upward to the national flag. The Spanish colors came fluttering to the deck and the fight was over. There was still plenty of will to fight, but with no one to coordinate, men either raised their hands or ran below.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
This had been a fight its participants would talk about for many a year. It was not every day a little brig would defeat such a powerful ship. The question now was, what to do with the prize? In wartime, of course, the capture would be repaired as well as possible and then sailed home for the crew to face the adulation of the public.
Here though, this would be impossible. Britain and Spain were officially at peace with each other. Undoubtedly, the frigate’s captain had planned to obliterate the little brig, probably hoping its fate would never be ascertained. He probably assumed no one in Europe would ever hear of the brig’s destruction.
Probably it would be best to just sail off and leave the large ship to her own devices. It would not be prudent or probably possible to bring that frigate into a port that the brig could safely enter.
Accordingly, Mastiff cleared as much damage away as she could and sailed, leaving the big frigate wallowing in the waves.
Battered and bruised, Mastiff set course for the island of Trinidad, close to the mainland of Venezuela. Having been in British hands for twenty years now, it was the most convenient friendly port for them to reach. The brig remained there only a few days while the most urgent repairs were made. After dropping copies of their reports in the post, the brig set course for English Harbor in Antigua.
There, they were the subject of some suspicion until Captain Phillips produced the, thus far, secret documents that detailed their mission to this area. A meeting with Governor Ramsay finally settled their claim to be a King’s ship, entitled to be repaired and maintained at government dockyard.
The dockyard was in no hurry to complete their repairs, so Phillips took rooms in town and lived there with Mary and the children while governmental inertia slowly ground on. During the weeks and months of delay, the brig’s crew began to evaporate. Many of the men had thought themselves victims of sharp practice when they found they had actually been serving in the Royal Navy instead of just crewing a yacht, so felt no scruples in just walking away from the brig. Always supposing there was another ship heading for home waters that needed hands, of course.
Phillips himself informed Sergeant Henderson of the new order and provided the funds to array his sergeant in the glory of a Royal Marine uniform. Some of the green-uniformed men also remained, far from home and uncertain of how they were to make a living, opted to sign on also. The seamen, of course, had the opportunity of signing aboard any visiting ship that was miss
ing a few crewmen.
Phillips continually badgered the Governor to persuade him to regularize the men’s naval and marine service so that he could have deserters apprehended, but Ramsay was reluctant. He decided to wait until instructions came from London to make a decision.
It was at that time the governor made a suggestion to Phillips. The British government had outlawed the importation of new slaves a few years earlier in the war. At the time, there had not been ships available to make much of a dent in this traffic. Ramsay proposed Phillips take his ship to sea to interdict some of this cruel traffic.
Phillips assured the governor he would gladly put to sea on that very quest as soon as he received a commission, supplies and a crew. This ended their conversation on the subject.
With his hands tied on matters concerning the ship, Phillips put it out of his mind. Hiring a little spring wagon, with a driver to handle the mule, Phillips and Mary began to explore the island. Putting all matters relating to the ship and the Navy from their minds they began to have a delightful time. The sun was too fierce for the babies’ light skin, so they were left behind in the care of a nurse.
The pair spent weeks in each other’s company, and it was inevitable they began to speak of marriage. Phillips had not been seeing Captain Fitzhugh on a regular basis, but running into him at the chandlery, Fitzhugh was asked if he would consider being best man at the wedding. Matters went rapidly at this point, and one morning he found himself coming out of the church entrance with a beautifully gowned Mary Phillips on his arm, under an arch of swords from officers of the local Army garrison.
The newlyweds had hardly a moment to become used to the idea when a mounted Royal Marine clattered up to the door. From his leather case, he pulled out a packet of papers which he presented to Captain Phillips.
One of the papers was just an order to present himself immediately to Governor Ramsay. Others, had come from London. He was congratulated on the completion of his mission and thanked for the information he had sent to London.
Now, there was to be a new mission. In almost the same words that Governor Ramsay had used earlier, he was acquainted with the proliferation of slave ships loading their cargo on the West Coast of Africa and transporting the unfortunate victims across the ocean to the various slave markets. He was required to attend upon the governor immediately.
His new wife had asked to use the wagon and driver to take her on a shopping excursion, so rather than hiring another vehicle, he decided to walk there. Actually, Government House was close by. It was only a few minutes after his arrival before he was ushered in to see the governor.
With orders and approval from London, all delays were put aside, and repairs and maintenance of the ship went on at a rapid pace. Exactly where he was to find a crew, Phillips had no idea, unless the governor would permit him to press the men he needed. As it happened though, good fortune supplied the answer.
With the war now over, many of the Royal Navy’s bigger ships had been stripped of their crews and put in ordinary. One who was not, was HMS Apollo, an 80 gun third rate. On a proposed visit to the Caribbean to show the flag to the Spaniards, Apollo was caught up in a late-season hurricane. She survived, but suffered much expensive damage. With the budget being what it was, the dockyard decided not to repair the ship. There were plenty more back home, now waiting to go into ordinary, that could replace her. Her crew and many of her fittings would be removed and the two-decker would become a hulk, useful as a floating warehouse.
With her crew coming ashore, there would be plenty of men to pick and choose from to man HMS Mastiff. It was anticipated the brig would do her cruising off the west coast of Africa. Closer to home though, small craft by the dozen were carrying loads of slaves illicitly among the islands, delivering the hands to smaller plantation owners. Other small craft, armed with a gun or two and manned with scores of hungry men, were also cruising these waters, taking whatever merchant shipping they ran across.
To meet these threats to peace, Governor Ramsay dipped into his funds and purchased a schooner which was armed and crewed with more of Apollo’s men and given to Lieutenant Fitzhugh. The schooner’s purpose was to patrol closer to home, hopefully snapping up the local slave and pirate traffic as well as any vessels that had evaded the British and American African patrols and made it across the middle passage.
The governor was unsure whom he should put in command of Mastiff. He had an elderly lieutenant as an aide, to whom he could give her. If Phillips approved, he himself could be appointed the new aide, else he must return to London.
Ramsay explained his reasoning to Phillips. “The only other option I can think of is place you in command. But that would be sure to ignite controversy among your naval colleagues. A brig, I understand, is the command of a lieutenant or commander, not a post captain like yourself.”
“Perhaps”, Phillips essayed, “we could temporarily dub the brig as a ‘post ship’. Then, I could legitimately remain aboard as her captain.”
“What about your honor?” worried the governor. “I know plenty of men who could not endure such a slight!”
“Oh, honor be damned!” muttered Phillips. “Give me something that floats and I will take it to sea.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
There would be no more nonsense of the brig being a private yacht. She would fly a commission pennant and the Union Jack. From a government warehouse, Phillips was able to draw sufficient Royal Marine uniforms and gear to supply his Marines.
What, though, was he to do with his wife and children? Mary wished to continue to sail with her husband, but the battle with the Spanish frigate had left a deep impression on her. She did not wish to subject the children to similar dangers again. Accordingly, she agreed to take passage back to Britain and resume care of the estate.
They had a week to spend together before it was time to part. Mary would take passage in a well set-up transport ship, taking military families back home. An Army captain that he knew slightly, taking his family home, volunteered to watch out for her. Phillips found he had come to care deeply for his wife. In the beginning, after the death of his child’s mother, he had merely regarded her as one of his employees, a necessary convenience without whose services he would have had great difficulty keeping his infant son alive.
In the time since, he found he could rely on her intelligence and advice. Gradually, almost without becoming aware of it, he found that respect had turned to love. It was bitter to stand on the quay and watch the transport’s boat take his wife and the boys out to the ship.
Before he could fall into the depths of melancholy though, here was Mister Andrews, one of his more useless midshipmen, to inform him the most recent supply of ship’s biscuit brought aboard was infested with maggots, and probably inedible, even by the Royal Navy’s relaxed standards.
By the time he had sorted out that difficulty, more troubles fell on his shoulders, so that by the time it was time to sail, he hardly knew what day of the week it was.
The draft of men from Apollo came over by launch in the midst of his personal anguish. In the morning, the decks and interior of the brig had been almost empty. That afternoon, after the launches had disgorged their passengers, those same decks were swarming with seamen carrying their bags and making their own critical observations of the brig. Having lost all of his own supervisory personnel, some of the officers and petty officers from Apollo came over too.
He had a young Lieutenant, Mister Burns, to serve as first officer. Burns had been fifth officer on Apollo. The young man was at first just another anonymous officer among a herd of new faces. Burns soon pulled ahead of the others by taking charge and relieving his captain of many of his chores. Another young man, Mister Devons, rated as master’s mate, could also take the deck, when needed. There was a whole flood of midshipmen that had been interviewed by Captain Phillips before leaving Apollo. Some of these lads had a few cruises under their belts and could probably be trusted with important tasks.
The hur
ricane season was about over for this year when Mastiff set sail. The plan was to follow the Gulf Stream up the North American coastline, then cross the Atlantic. He planned to touch at Gibraltar, then it would be southerly down the African coast line, interviewing all ships encountered. Any ship carrying slaves would be seized, and the captives would be taken to the settlement at Sierra Leone, where they would be set free.
There was little difficulty with the ship or crew. Mastiff, of course, was in perfect order, and the men, before coming aboard, had been culled carefully. On the way up the American coast, they met plenty of Yankee ships, but there was no trouble. The war with that republic was ended, and British ship captains were strictly forbidden to show dis-respect to American ships or crew. The only American ships he might offer to molest would be ships returning from Africa with holds full of slaves.
Captain Phillips had visited America before and wished to do so again, but now was not the time. Lieutenant Burns was a most efficient first officer, well versed with his duties and determined to spare his captain any effort in the handling of the ship.
On her arrival at Gibraltar, Mastiff fired off the salute, and her crew went right to work loading the tons of provisions that had been ordered for them long before their arrival. The more experienced of the hands expressed their displeasure when the casks of Spanish red wine were hoisted aboard in place of the rum they had been consuming since their departure from the Caribbean.
While the men would consume alcohol in almost any form when the occasion arose, rum was their favorite, and discord was to be expected when it was not available. As far as the Navy was concerned, availability and price was the important factor. In home waters, beer was frequently issued, but that did not travel well. In the Med, whatever cheap wine that could be found was issued to the men. For longer voyages, to or from the Caribbean, rum was favored since it did not spoil.
Thunder On the Sea: A Tim Phillips novel (War at Sea Book 11) Page 10